Notice E0 Phase 1 Shelf Readiness

Notice E for promoting investments in digital health global goods

Advancing Instant OpenHIE

Two-sentence overview: 

The Instant OpenHIE project aims to reduce the costs and skills required for software developers to rapidly deploy an OpenHIE architecture for quicker initial solution testing and a starting point for faster production implementation and customisation. Instant OpenHIE provides a simple way for technical persons to install and see a complex system working against a real-world use case, allowing technical persons to illustrate how interoperability can work to solve health challenges and demonstrate how an interoperability architecture could be created using open-source tools and standards.

Executive summary: 

The Instant OpenHIE project aims to address the primary needs of (i) allowing implementers to engage with a preconfigured health information exchange solution and running tools (based on the architecture) and test their applicability and functionality with a real health context problem; and (ii) having a packaged reference version of the OpenHIE architecture that is comprised of a set of reference technologies and other appropriate tools that form the building blocks of the health information exchange that can be configured and extended to support particular use cases.

At maturity, Instant OpenHIE aims to provide portable, launchable versions of multiple OpenHIE components to facilitate:

  • Demonstrable reference products -- those that align with the OpenHIE Community's vision for low resource contexts

  • Rapid software development of mediators and point-of-service systems by making it possible to launch several applications easily so the developer can focus on their task

  • Reproducible, version-controlled infrastructure for user-contributed tests of the OpenHIE Architecture profiles, workflows, and use cases.

  • Production-ready containers and orchestratable components that are deployable in any context.

The project consortium has partnered on the initial phase of the Instant OpenHIE project, which focused on the development of a core prototypical health information exchange using open standards and open-source software, centered on a particular use case and set of technologies, as well as the development of an extensible conceptual and technical architecture that allows for new packages, components and apps to be added to the Instant OpenHIE offering.

The Digital Square investment will be used to support two areas of work:

  • Supporting communities aligning their solutions to be part of the Instant OpenHIE project and initiative, through direct support and extending the Instant OpenHIE capabilities through improved contributor guidelines and tutorials, template scripts and examples, and architecture revisions to ensure ease of use in extending and deploying Instant OpenHIE.

  • Advancing the features and maturity of Instant OpenHIE towards the objective of a ‘shelf ready’ solution.

Consortium Team: 

Jembi Health Systems will lead and oversee the project, working with IntraHealth as a partner to deliver on the scope of work.

Jembi is an African non-profit company specialising in digital health and open source software development and implementation. Jembi has a successful track record developing and implementing open source software in the health sector, including in a number of African countries. It has contributed to many open-source software development projects and communities of practice, including OpenMRS, Bahmni, OpenHIM, HEARTH and OpenHIE. Jembi is registered and headquartered in South Africa with country offices in Mozambique.

IntraHealth International is a global health NGO with a 40-year history in developing successful data tools and digital health applications for health workers and managers. IntraHealth develops solutions that are open source, data-driven, sustainable, and collaborative. As a pioneer in the field of health workforce informatics, IntraHealth is committed to using technology, information, and analytical approaches to support the people at the center of our health systems.

WHO Classification: 
Data interchange interoperability and accessibility
Application Status: 
Approved - fully funded
Application Tags: 
interoperability
openhie
packaging and deployment
containerization
interoperability layer

Comments

Hi Daniel,

Thank you for submitting a concept note for Notice E0. Please note, concept notes should be 3 pages or less. Please delete all “Instructions for the applicants” (first page) of the concept note template. Final concept notes are due May 22 at 5pm EDT. 

Thanks,
Caitlin

Thanks Daniel for the updated concept note, are there priority use cases that the project will look at addressings? For example, HMIS with DHIS2 or similar? It would be good to identify a priority focus area to expand towards in addition to the support to the community.

Hi Carl, thanks for the question. The thinking was to build out and support a use case based on the set of global goods selected under Notice E0 that would be looking to align their solutions to be part of the Instant OpenHIE initiative. i.e. based on the solutions selected, identify a priority use case, set of packages and workflows that would leverage those solutions, and build out the package & test data, containerisation/deployment and mediator services to support that implementation use case. But we can also propose a priority use case/focus area in the proposal.

Hi Daniel,

Healthsites.io is interested in collaborating to maintain baseline health facility data. We are looking to align with the Instant OpenHIE initiative.